Irrational

My cerebral exercise in futility is beginning to rear its unattractive noggin once again, as the never-ending U-S election season nears its climax. 

In a clear effort to debunk all the 'peace' chatter from President Barrack Obama and others, the U-S military industrial complex is ramping up disinformation and outright fictional scenarios to promote the lucrative business of conflict. Yes, war (who would have guessed) is hugely profitable for the business community. Iran has been conveniently chosen to play the part of evildoer that is a threat to world peace and the survival of freedom and liberty everywhere.

For about four years now we have been inundated with warnings that Iran's theocracy is on a suicide mission; that it will gladly martyr perhaps hundreds of millions of people, just to prove to the world that the Zionists who run Israel should be destroyed. 

This is laughable. It's as if Hollywood cartoons are the template for U-S foreign policy. 

Yet serious and otherwise intelligent people offer the argument that it would be the worst thing ever for Iran to have nuclear weaponry. Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu's feverish rhetoric, during the home stretch of the U-S presidential campaign, that the world (read U-S-A) must draw a 'red line' in the sand is only inflaming an already burning region of the world and feeding the ravenous military-industrial monster.

This brings us to a little bit of recent history and the arguments that real western statesmen have made - that 'containment' is better than war; that 'containment' or 'deterrence' helps prevent war; that rational governments avoid war.

The Soviet Union held off western attempts to inflict democracy on its empire by developing a massive, sophisticated nuclear arsenal. One atomic bomb can kill tens of thousands of people and raze a large area in a flash. The USSR built 4,000 to 6,000 nuclear bombs and placed them in strategic regions of its sprawling sphere of influence and domination. The Soviet's rush to militarism might have seemed insane and dangerous at the time, but it was perfectly rational. It was a clear defense mechanism that did it's job. No nation ever launched a nuclear attack on the USSR and it, being mostly rational, never did either. 

Still, the pro-war lobby is drowning out those pragmatic historians who know that if two nations have the capability to destroy one another, chances are there will be a productive, non-military relationship, if not actual peace. 

From all I've read (much of it between the lines) Iran just wants to be left alone. It has not started a war, despite some threatening rhetoric from one or two of its politicians. It has been invaded, by neighbouring Iraq and its U-S-armed leader Saddam Hussein. More than a million Iranians were killed in the 8-year conflict. 

So there's absolutely no evidence that Iran has imperialist ambitions to swallow up its neighbours. Influence? Certainly. It is large and a key nation in a volatile region, but it also a student of history and, thus, realizes that expansionist, military aggression is bound to fail (see Hitler and the Third Reich.). Thus, there's really nothing to 'contain', as in the U-S hawks' clarion call that 'Iran must be contained'.  

Containment was the watch-word of western allies in dealing with the Soviet Union and communism. It was a much better option than launching a military, or even nuclear, strike. Eventually the weight of its own ineffectiveness crushed the Soviet system.

Deterrence is a different story, even though I would argue that it's also the wrong term to use regarding Iran. And deterrence works both ways.

Who's to say that Iran could be developing a nuclear arsenal to 'deter' Israel and others with nuclear weaponry from attacking it? In fact, if Teheran is building atomic weapons (the Ayatollahs say they are not, that it is anti-Islamic) it would make potential warmongering invaders think twice.

As Bill Keller asked in a recent New York Times article, "If the U.S. arsenal deterred the Soviet Union for decades of cold war and now keeps North Korea’s nukes in their silos, if India and Pakistan have kept each other in a nuclear stalemate, why would Iran not be similarly deterred by the certainty that using nuclear weapons would bring a hellish reprisal?"

My point, precisely. The west might wish that Iran's government was a western-style democracy, not a theocracy, but they the Ayatollahs are rational. Those robed and bearded Mullahs may rail against Zionism, but not Jews. In fact, Iranian Jews are represented in the multi-party system that comprises Iran's parliament.

Even one of the U-S's least rational Republicans, Senator Lindsey Graham, defeated his own pro-war mentality when he let slip that, "They (Iran's leaders) have two goals: one, regime survival. The best way for the regime surviving, in their mind, is having a nuclear weapon, because when you have a nuclear weapon, nobody attacks you."

Same can be said the Israel's Zionists. They went nuclear, just in case. Senator Graham added Iran's theocracy would also like to influence neighbours and trading partners. He is quoted as saying "people listen to you" when you have a nuclear weapon. Good point. 

Point taken, in fact, by no less than the U-S, Russia, China, France, the U-K, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel. 

A nuclear-armed Iran could actually stabilize the region and allow its many nations to sit down and work out there differences, similarities and common needs. It would certainly make potential invaders reconsider. Yes, the rich Saudi theocratic dictators might use such an Iranian acquisition as an excuse to do the same. But guess who would benefit? The west's military industrial complex. An excellent business opportunity.

If Israel's nuclear stockpiled protects it from hostilities, why is Iran any different?

Also, ask yourself this (amid the torrent of sabre-rattling by U-S and Israeli hawks) - would Iran's leaders gladly murder millions of Palestinians in a nuclear holocaust, assure its own destruction and most certainly propel the world into war?

I don't think so.

The ultimate irony here is that the U-S sabre-rattlers are mostly members of the National Rifle Association, which argues that the more guns, the merrier. That if you are armed, you are safer. If your household contains armaments and you have the inalienable right to kill burglars, the bad guys would probably leave your house alone. Apparently that premise is faulty on a world scale.

One other quick thought (which will likely be the subject of a future blog) - how warm and cozy would the United States feel if, say, Iran invaded a neighbouring country (Mexico) and occupied it for a decade? A little threatened, perhaps?